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Refugee claimants need safe access at U.S.-Canada border: Cole

By Desmond Cole

Thu., March 16, 2017

I remember how Canadians cried for Alan Kurdi, a refugee who didn’t survive a voyage he never should have been forced to make. The image of the Syrian toddler’s lifeless body, face down on a Turkish beach, shook the entire world and shifted the focus of our 2015 federal election.

One photograph came to symbolize our collective failure to help refugees, and Canadians were especially touched when we learned the Kurdi family hoped to find safety here.

Last month in Winnipeg, Razak Iyal, 35, carefully drinks water using hands that were severely frostbitten during an hours long trek in the snow to cross the border into Canada on Christmas Eve. Iyal and Seidu Mohammed, 24, left, walked miles in waist deep snow and freezing temperatures before they were picked up on a highway. (Robert Gauthier / /Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Kurdi drowned, as so many refugees have drowned, in the Mediterranean Sea. He was one of 16 passengers on a boat designed for eight people. Western nations know that people seeking safety will risk their lives to reach our shores, even if we do not invite them. But we deny our responsibility to most refugees, and ensure that their path to us remains as dangerous as possible.

Asylum seekers have been entering Canada from the United States in greater numbers lately. Many have been avoiding official border crossings — based on an agreement between Canada and the United States, we reject most people who try to apply for refugee status at regular crossings. But we generally allow people to make a refugee claim if they find another way to cross our invisible border line.

People are risking their lives to cross on foot through forests and fields in Manitoba and Quebec, some with very young children. Razak Iyal and Seidu Mohammed, both refugee claimants from Ghana, suffered severe frostbite while crossing into Canada near Emerson, Man., on Christmas Eve. Mohammed, 24, lost all his fingers and thumbs, and parts of his ears; Iyal, 35, had all his fingers amputated.

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This week, a 46-year-old man from Ivory Coast, who gave his name as Mamadou, was rescued by police in the woods near Lacolle Que. Mamadou lost consciousness after wading through two bodies of water in -15 C temperatures. He told the media his thought upon collapsing was, “That’s OK, I want to die. Let me just die on my way. I don’t want to go back.”

Just as the Greek, Italian, Spanish and other European governments know that desperate refugees will keep coming, Canada’s government must suspect our own increase in asylum seekers will continue, especially because refugees see the United States as an increasingly unsafe place. The U.S. administration has lately, among other things, taken to boasting about immigration raids and deportations, and President Donald Trump has mused about publishing lists of immigrants who commit crimes.

Canadian officials continue to cover their eyes and ears, and stubbornly uphold the dubiously named Safe Third Country Agreement that forces refugee claimants into danger. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen denies U.S. policy is fuelling the increase in refugee claims. Of those who are risking their lives to cross into Canada, Hussen said last month, “I personally sympathize with those who are seeking safety and security in our country for themselves and for their families, and I know that folks sometimes go through a lot to get to that point.”

Mamadou, Iyal, Mohammed, and so many others have risked everything, with no guarantee they will be accepted as refugees. While I share minister Hussen’s respect for the courage of asylum seekers, they shouldn’t have to face death to receive a refugee hearing.

We should not wait for a photograph of a dead African child in the Canadian wilderness to move us, especially since we have not been moved by the daily images of Africans who have perished in the sea in the last decade, just as Kurdi did.

A refugee claims is, by its nature, an emergency. Metro columnist Vicky Mochama highlighted this critical point recently in a piece entitled “No such thing as ‘queue jumping’ for refugees.” Mochama dismissed the idea that asylum seekers can line up and wait for safer nations to acknowledge their plight. “There is no lineup when you’re fleeing a fire,” writes Mochama, “the only requirement is to get out alive.”

By defending the Safe Third Country Agreement, the Liberal government’s is turning its back on the fire that is the global refugee crisis.

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The Atlantic and Pacific oceans have made Canadians believe we can mostly ignore the global refugee crisis. Where oceans and seas are not barrier enough, we enforce arbitrary rules across imaginary borders to deny people safety. While we cannot guarantee all refugees claimants safe passage, it’s telling that we refuse to acknowledge those who make it all the way to our doorstep.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based journalist. His column appears every second Thursday.

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